Summary

Every English speaker is able to understand and communicate with each other even when there are some factors that may cause them to have a variety of system similarities and differences when speaking. All of these differences can be the result of the place English speakers come from, their age, their sex, social status, formality, relationships, etc. People from all over the USA have a variation on the way they speak and we call the different ways of speaking “dialects”. These so called “dialects” are spoken in each region and when they speak people from other states can notice the difference by just hearing each other. However, aside from what we know as a dialect, we also know the idiolect as the language that every person speaks as an individual, which is also a factor that sums up to the way a group of speakers talk.

Dialect diversity develops when the changes that occur in one region or group do not spread. When speakers are surrounded by a group of people or in a specific region for a certain amount of time, the dialect that they adapt is a result of that place or group of people because of the contact with it. People would expect for there to be a dialect leveling on those who travel because they don’t only have contact with the region they are in or the group of people they grow up, but also with other cultures and regions. What happens is that the dialect leveling does not happens by traveling or by the mass media, but rather by the television and national radio. This is where we get to know the regional and social dialects.

The regional dialect is associated with a place and talks about where we come from and the social dialect says who we are. Each version of the language is referred to as a regional dialect and they are based on geographic region. The origins of many regional dialects of American English can be traced to the people who settled in North America, these people came from England and they already spoke different dialects of English and then carried them to the original thirteen American colonies. Their development is illustrated by the pronunciation of words with an r in different parts of United States. American people nowadays was a general rule in New England and then the r-less came into existence and has been retained in states such as Boston, New York and Savannah, states where many black people is at. These differences with the r are considered accents, that exist in America, but also is the term used to refer to the speech of non-native speakers who have learned a language as a second language.

Social dialects on the other hand are apparently the social factors from where the dialect differences seem to come. Social boundaries and class differences are as confining as the physical barriers that often define regional dialects, they are numerous and based on socioeconomic status, religious, ethnic, and racial differences, country origin, and gender.  There is also a dialect that is considered a superior one and is believed to be the one that people from upper classes speak. It is known as the “Standard English” and it as mentioned before has social functions.

After we see the many additions and subtractions that have been made to the English language, we also see another minus as is the appearance of the banned languages. The Banned of language arises because purists wish to prevent language or dialect differentiation because of their false belief that some languages are better than others, or that change leads to corruption. Languages and dialects have been banned through the years because of political control in The United States as it has been in many others countries. Cajun English is an example of it and even French has had a place in this history just as the American Indian languages but we also see dialects being banned. An example of a dialect banishment is the African American English, which is spoken by a large population of Americans of African descent. This dialect has distinguishing features of this English dialect persist for social, educational, and economic reasons, but some critics have attempt to equate its use with inferior genetic intelligence and cultural deprivation, justifying these incorrect notions by stating that it is a deficient, illogical and incomplete language. Even with these critics being put over this dialect the historical discrimination against it has created boundaries that permit this dialect to thrive. We also know the Latino and Chicano English as the first language by many children, making it the native language of hundreds and thousands, if not millions of Americans and a very special one that has also been tried to be banned and suffered just as the others that have experienced social and regional changes.


By: Ceslie Fernandez